Here is a new detective by Rex Stout, creator of the famous and beloved Nero Wolfe, who is the antithesis in many ways of his illustrious colleague, Nero. Where Wolfe is sedentary, Hicks is a dynamo of energy, where Wolfe is subtle. Hicks is brusque and direct; only in one thing are they alike — eccentricity.Alphabet Hicks, a lawyer more or less happy in disbarment, was content to make his living driving a taxi-cab until a certain woman happened to ride in his cab. This fare was the reason why Hicks left his cab and agreed to take a case, a case that turned out to have an intimate connection with the manufacture of plastics, and an even more intimate connection with some killings at a plastics laboratory some fifty miles from New York.That is the beginning, but by no means the end. This is a story with the pace of an airplane written with the skill of Rex Stout.

The sexes battle, the mind feuds with emotions it cannot control and crime extorts and strikes and kills but it does not pay in this collection of stories by Rex Stout at the outset of his celebrated career in mystery and suspense. Again and again in these tales taken from the pages of pulps that originally published him — from popular magazines like All Story Weekly, the Black Cat and the Smart Set — the creator of the immortal Nero Wolfe proves himself to be the master of the sudden reversal and unexpected revelation as he probes the thwarted heart, the wounded soul and the criminal intelligence.

The old-fashioned firm of Tingley’s Titbits had built up over a number of years a good and solid reputation, which was now in danger of being ruined. Indignant customers were returning jars of liver paté, sandwich spread, spiced anchovies and other such delicacies. Analysis showed that the contents had been adulterated with quinine. Arthur Tingley, the proprietor, was at his wits’ end. It was not only bad for business, it looked like being fatal. And it was... for Arthur. Here is a fine new murder story by that most entertaining of all detective writers, Rex Stout, featuring one of his famous characters, Tecumseh Fox, in the rôle of detective.

In this story Nero Wolfe investigates the murders of Dazy Perrit, an underworld kingpin.

When Nero Wolfe comes up against murder in the advertising business it isn’t surprising that the world’s largest detective (one-seventh of a ton of orchid-loving, beer-drinking genius) should find himself involved with one of the world’s largest advertising agencies. The agency is conducting the biggest prize contest ever, with prizes totaling one million dollars. Just one man knows the solutions in the million-dollar contest, and it’s his disappearance that introduces Nero and Archie to the world of four-color spreads and TV spectaculars. It introduces them also to a murderer who has the audacity to kill in Nero’s office and before Nero’s very eyes. After Rex Stout unfolds this novel, it is possible that the advertising world will never be the same — and this may be a public service.

Wolfe’s cook is in bed with the flu which is a total disaster for the corpulent Nero, estimated to weigh between 310 and 390 pounds. He opens a can of pate, takes a bite and promptly spits it out assured that he has been poisoned. Archie Goodwin, his do-it-all assistant and the story narrator, proceeds to investigate only to find the owner of the company murdered and his relatives suspected.

Wolf’s lust for a unique black orchid combined with his envy of the orchid fancier who hybridized it impel him to attend the annual New York flower show. A nursery/seed company employee is murdered at the show. Wolfe offers to solve the murder in exchange for the rare plant; and he does solve it with some clear thinking and a dramatic stratagem.

In this story Nero working for the War Department. The case presented to him involves widespread industrial sabotage, and without much in the way of clues, Nero, with Archie’s help, sets his own “booby traps” to catch a murderer and a traitor.

In “Bullet for One,” a man with a lot of enemies is shot dead while riding his horse in the early morning in Central Park; five of the six suspects believe the sixth man is the culprit, but he’s got an ironclad alibi...

Faith Usher tells anyone willing to listen that she wants to kill herself. So when she dies after drinking champagne at the annual gala for unwed mothers, everyone insists that it was suicide. Everyone except Archie Goodwin, the perennial wise guy, who was watching her drink.

Wolfe is hired by a society party planner to find out who is writing poison pen letters about her and sending them to her clients and potential clients. Since it appears that the letters are coming from a member of the party planner’s household, Archie is sent up to her Riverdale mansion to investigate. The client dies a few days into the investigation. Was it an accident or murder? Is there a connection between the death and the letters? If it was murder how was it done?

Under suspicion for murder and too angry to deny it, harried Hattie Annis offered 42 grand to Nero Wolfe to make the cops eat dirt. If she was innocent, you can ask her whether he earned his fee.